The Immaculate Conception is commonly confused with the doctrine of the Incarnation and the virgin birth of Jesus, though the two deal with separate subjects. The Catholic Church teaches Mary was conceived by normal biological means, but her soul was acted upon by God (kept "immaculate") at the time of her conception.

Distinctions

Original sin and actual (personal) sin

The defined dogma of the Immaculate Conception regards original sin only, saying that Mary was preserved from any stain (in Latin, macula or labes, the second of these two synonymous words being the one used in the formal definition).[3] The proclaimed Roman Catholic dogma states "that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."[3] Therefore, being always free from original sin, the doctrine teaches that from her conception Mary received the sanctifying grace that would normally come with baptism after birth.

The definition makes no declaration about the Church's belief that the Blessed Virgin was sinless in the sense of freedom from actual or personal sin.[4] However, the Church holds that Mary was also sinless personally, "free from all sin, original or personal".[5] The Council of Trent decreed: "If anyone shall say that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he who falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the contrary, that throughout his whole life he can avoid all sins even venial sins, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin: let him be anathema."[6]

Virginal conception

The doctrine of the immaculate conception (Mary being conceived free from original sin) is not to be confused with her virginal conception of her son Jesus. This misunderstanding of the term immaculate conception is frequently met in the mass media. Catholics believe that Mary was not the product of a virginal conception herself but was the daughter of a human father and mother,[7] traditionally known by the names of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne. In 1677, the Holy See condemned the belief that Mary was virginally conceived, which had been a belief surfacing occasionally since the 4th century.[8] The Church celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (when Mary was conceived free from original sin) on 8 December, exactly nine months before celebrating the Nativity of Mary. The feast of the Annunciation (which commemorates the virginal conception and the Incarnation of Jesus) is celebrated on 25 March, nine months before Christmas Day.[9][10]

Redemption

Another misunderstanding is that, by her immaculate conception, Mary did not need a saviour. When defining the dogma in Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX explicitly affirmed that Mary was redeemed in a manner more sublime. He stated that Mary, rather than being cleansed after sin, was completely prevented from contracting Original Sin in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race. In Luke 1:47, Mary proclaims: "My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour." This is referred to as Mary's pre-redemption by Christ. Since the Council of Orange II against semi-pelagianism, the Catholic Church has taught that even had man never sinned in the Garden of Eden and was sinless, he would still require God's grace to remain sinless.[11][12]

History

A feast of the Conception of the Most Holy and All Pure Mother of God was celebrated in Syria on 8 December perhaps as early as the 5th century. Note that the title of achrantos (spotless, immaculate, all-pure) refers to the holiness of Mary, not specifically to the holiness of her conception.[13]

Mary's complete sinlessness and concomitant exemption from any taint from the first moment of her existence was a doctrine familiar to Greek theologians of Byzantium. Beginning with St. Gregory Nazianzen, his explanation of the "purification" of Jesus and Mary at the circumcision (Luke 2:22) prompted him to consider the primary meaning of "purification" in Christology (and by extension in Mariology) to refer to a perfectly sinless nature that manifested itself in glory in a moment of grace (e.g., Jesus at his Baptism). St. Gregory Nazianzen designated Mary as “prokathartheisa (prepurified).” Gregory likely attempted to solve the riddle of the Purification of Jesus and Mary in the Temple through considering the human natures of Jesus and Mary as equally holy and therefore both purified in this manner of grace and glory.[15] Gregory's doctrines surrounding Mary's purification were likely related to the burgeoning commemoration of the Mother of God in and around Constantinople very close to the date of Christmas.[16] Nazianzen's title of Mary at the Annunciation as "prepurified" was subsequently adopted by all theologians interested in his Mariology to justify the Byzantine equivalent of the Immaculate Conception. This is especially apparent in the Fathers St. Sophronios of Jerusalem and St. John Damascene, who will be treated below in this article at the section on Church Fathers. About the time of Damascene, the public celebration of the "Conception of St. Ann [i.e., of the Theotokos in her womb]" was becoming popular. After this period, the "purification" of the perfect natures of Jesus and Mary would not only mean moments of grace and glory at the Incarnation and Baptism and other public Byzantine liturgical feasts, but purification was eventually associated with the feast of Mary's very conception (along with her Presentation in the Temple as a toddler) by Orthodox authors of the 2nd millennium (e.g., St. Nicholas Cabasilas[17] and Joseph Bryennius).[18]

By 750 the feast of her conception was widely celebrated in the Byzantine East, under the name of the Conception (active) of Saint Anne. In the West it was known as the feast of the Conception (passive) of Mary, and was associated particularly with the Normans, whether these introduced it directly from the East[19] or took it from English usage.[20] The spread of the feast, by now with the adjective "Immaculate" attached to its title, met opposition on the part of some, on the grounds that sanctification was possible only after conception.[21] Critics included Saints Bernard of Clairvaux, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Other theologians defended the expression "Immaculate Conception", pointing out that sanctification could be conferred at the first moment of conception in view of the foreseen merits of Christ, a view held especially by Franciscans.[22]

Writers such as Mark Miravalle and Sarah Jane Boss interpret the existence of the feast as a strong indication of the Church's traditional belief in the Immaculate Conception.[23][24]

On 28 February 1476, Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan after whom the Sistine Chapel is named, authorized those dioceses that wished to introduce the feast to do so, and introduced it to his own diocese of Rome in 1477,[20] with a specially composed Mass and Office of the feast.[25] With his bull Cum praeexcelsa of 28 February 1477, in which he referred to the feast as that of the Conception of Mary, without using the word "Immaculate", he granted indulgences to those who would participate in the specially composed Mass or Office on the feast itself or during its octave, and he used the word "immaculate" of Mary, but applied instead the adjective "miraculous" to her conception.[26][27] On 4 September 1483, referring to the feast as that of "the Conception of Immaculate Mary ever Virgin", he condemned both those who called it mortally sinful and heretical to hold that the "glorious and immaculate mother of God was conceived without the stain of original sin" and those who called it mortally sinful and heretical to hold that "the glorious Virgin Mary was conceived with original sin", since, he said, "up to this time there has been no decision made by the Roman Church and the Apostolic See."[28] This decree was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.[29]

Pope Pius V, while including the feast in the Tridentine Calendar, removed the adjective "Immaculate" and suppressed the existing special Mass for the feast, directing that the Mass for the Nativity of Mary (with the word "Nativity" replaced by "Conception") be used instead.[31] Part of that earlier Mass was revived in the Mass that Pope Pius IX ordered to be used on the feast and that is still in use.[32]

On 6 December 1708, Pope Clement XI made the feast of the Conception of Mary, at that time still with the Nativity of Mary formula for the Mass, a Holy Day of Obligation.[21] Until Pope Pius X reduced in 1911 the number of Holy Days of Obligation to 8, there were in the course of the year 36 such days, apart from Sundays.[33]

Definition of the dogma

During the reign of Pope Gregory XVI the bishops in various countries began to press for a definition as dogma of the teaching of Mary's immaculate conception.[34]

In 1839 Mariano Spada (1796 - 1872), professor of theology at the Roman College of Saint Thomas, published Esame Critico sulla dottrina dell’ Angelico Dottore S. Tommaso di Aquino circa il Peccato originale, relativamente alla Beatissima Vergine Maria [A critical examination of the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, regarding original sin with respect to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary],[35] in which Aquinas is interpreted not as treating the question of the Immaculate Conception later formulated in the papal bullIneffabilis Deus but rather the sanctification of the fetus within Mary's womb. Spada furnished an interpretation whereby Pius IX was relieved of the problem of seeming to foster a doctrine not in agreement with the Aquinas' teaching.[36]Pope Pius IX would later appoint Spada Master of the Sacred Palace in 1867.

Pius IX, at the beginning of his pontificate, and again after 1851, appointed commissions to investigate the whole subject, and he was advised that the doctrine was one which could be defined and that the time for a definition was opportune.

We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful.

The papal definition of the dogma declares with absolute certainty and authority that Mary possessed sanctifying grace from the first instant of her existence and was free from the lack of grace caused by the original sin at the beginning of human history. Mary's salvation was won by her son Jesus Christ through his passion, death, and resurrection and was not due to her own merits.[39][40]

Later developments

For the Roman Catholic Church the dogma of the Immaculate Conception gained additional significance from the reputed apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858. At Lourdes a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that a beautiful woman appeared to her and said, "I am the Immaculate Conception". Many believe the woman to have been the Blessed Virgin Mary and pray to her as such.[41][42]

Speaking of the witness of the Church Fathers in claiming for Mary titles such as "Free from all contagion of sin", Pope Pius XII wrote:

If the popular praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary be given the careful consideration they deserve, who will dare to doubt that she, who was purer than the angels and at all times pure, was at any moment, even for the briefest instant, not free from every stain of sin?[44]

The Roman Catholic tradition has a well-established philosophy for the study of the Immaculate Conception and the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the field of Mariology, with Pontifical schools such as the Marianum specifically devoted to this.[45][46][47]

According to Bernard Ullathorne, a 19th-century English Roman Catholic prelate, "the expressions - The Immaculate Conception - The Immaculate Preservation - The Immunity - and Exception from original sin, are all phrases which bear the same signification, and are used equally to express one and the same mystery."[48]

It seems to have been St Bernard of Clairvaux who, in the 12th century, explicitly raised the question of the Immaculate Conception. A feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin had already begun to be celebrated in some churches of the West. St Bernard blames the canons of the metropolitan church of Lyon for instituting such a festival without the permission of the Holy See. In doing so, he takes occasion to repudiate altogether the view that the conception of Mary was sinless. It is doubtful, however, whether he was using the term "conception" in the same sense in which it is used in the definition of Pope Pius IX. Bernard would seem to have been speaking of conception in the active sense of the mother's cooperation, for in his argument he says: "How can there be absence of sin where there is concupiscence (libido)?" and stronger expressions follow, showing that he is speaking of the mother and not of the child.[4]

Saint Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval scholastics, refused to admit the Immaculate Conception, on the ground that, unless the Blessed Virgin had at one time or other been one of the sinful, she could not justly be said to have been redeemed by Christ.[49]

Saint Bonaventure (d. 1274), second only to Saint Thomas in his influence on the Christian schools of his age, hesitated to accept it for a similar reason.[4] He believed that Mary was completely free from sin, but that she was not given this grace at the instant of her conception.[50]

The celebrated John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), a Friar Minor like Saint Bonaventure, argued, on the contrary, that from a rational point of view it was certainly as little derogatory to the merits of Christ to assert that Mary was by him preserved from all taint of sin, as to say that she first contracted it and then was delivered.[4] Proposing a solution to the theological problem of reconciling the doctrine with that of universal redemption in Christ, he argued that Mary's immaculate conception did not remove her from redemption by Christ; rather it was the result of a more perfect redemption granted her because of her special role in salvation history.[51]

The arguments of Scotus, combined with a better acquaintance with the language of the early Fathers, gradually prevailed in the schools of the Western Church. In 1387 the university of Paris strongly condemned the opposite view.[4]

Scotus's arguments remained controversial, however, particularly among the Dominicans, who were willing enough to celebrate Mary's sanctificatio (being made free from sin) but, following the Dominican Thomas Aquinas' arguments, continued to insist that her sanctification could not have occurred until after her conception.[21]

Popular opinion remained firmly behind the celebration of Mary's conception. In 1439, the Council of Basel, which is not reckoned an ecumenical council, stated that belief in the immaculate conception of Mary is in accord with the Catholic faith.[52] By the end of the 15th century the belief was widely professed and taught in many theological faculties, but such was the influence of the Dominicans, and the weight of the arguments of Thomas Aquinas (who had been canonised in 1323 and declared "Doctor Angelicus" of the Church in 1567) that the Council of Trent (1545–63)—which might have been expected to affirm the doctrine—instead declined to take a position.[21][39]

Church Fathers

It is admitted that the doctrine as defined by Pius IX was not explicitly mooted before the 12th century. It is also agreed that "no direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture".[21] But it is claimed that the doctrine is implicitly contained in the teaching of the Fathers. Their expressions on the subject of the sinlessness of Mary are, it is pointed out, so ample and so absolute that they must be taken to include original sin as well as actual. Thus in the first five centuries such epithets as "in every respect holy", "in all things unstained", "super-innocent", and "singularly holy" are applied to her; she is compared to Eve before the fall, as ancestress of a redeemed people; she is "the earth before it was accursed". The well-known words of St. Augustine (d. 430) may be cited: "As regards the mother of God," he says, "I will not allow any question whatever of sin." It is true that he is here speaking directly of actual or personal sin. But his argument is that all men are sinners; that they are so through original depravity; that this original depravity may be overcome by the grace of God, and he adds that he does not know but that Mary may have had sufficient grace to overcome sin "of every sort" (omni ex parte).[4]

Although the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception appears only later among Latin (and particularly Frankish) theologians,[53]It became ever more manifest among Byzantine theologians reliant on Gregory Nazianzen's Mariology in the Medieval or Byzantine East. Although hymnographers and scholars, like the Emperor Justinian I, were accustomed to call Mary "prepurified" in their poetic and credal statements, the first point of departure for more fully commenting on Nazianzen's meaning occurs in Sophronius of Jerusalem.[54]In other places Sophronius explains that the Theotokos was already immaculate, when she was "purified" at the Annunciation and goes so far as to note that John the Baptist is literally "holier than all 'Men' born of woman" since Mary's surpassing holiness signifies that she was holier than even John after his sanctification in utero.[55] Sophronius' teaching is augmented and incorporated in the great St. John Damascene (d. 749/750). John, besides many passages wherein he extolls the Theotokos for her purification at the Annunciation, grants her the unique honor of "purifying the waters of baptism by touching them." This honor was most famously and firstly attributed to Christ, especially in the legacy of Nazianzen. As such, Nazianzen's assertion of parallel holiness between the prepurified Mary and purified Jesus of the New Testament is made even more explicit in Damascene in his discourse on Mary's holiness to also imitate Christ's baptism at the Jordan.[56] The Damascene's hymnongraphy and De fide Orthodoxa explicitly use Mary's "pre purification" as a key to understanding her absolute holiness and unsullied human nature. In fact, Damascene (along with Nazianzen) serves as the source for nearly all subsequent promotion of Mary's complete holiness from her Conception by the "all pure seed" of Joachim and the womb "wider than heaven" of St. Ann.[57]

The papal bull defining the dogma, Ineffabilis Deus, mentioned in particular the patrististic interpretation of Genesis 3:15 as referring to a woman, Mary, who would be eternally at enmity with the evil serpent and completely triumphing over him. It said the Fathers saw foreshadowings of Mary's "wondrous abundance of divine gifts and original innocence" "in that ark of Noah, which was built by divine command and escaped entirely safe and sound from the common shipwreck of the whole world; in the ladder which Jacob saw reaching from the earth to heaven, by whose rungs the angels of God ascended and descended, and on whose top the Lord himself leaned;[58] in that bush which Moses saw in the holy place burning on all sides, which was not consumed or injured in any way but grew green and blossomed beautifully;[59] in that impregnable tower before the enemy, from which hung a thousand bucklers and all the armor of the strong;[60] in that garden enclosed on all sides, which cannot be violated or corrupted by any deceitful plots;[61] in that resplendent city of God, which has its foundations on the holy mountains;[62] in that most august temple of God, which, radiant with divine splendours, is full of the glory of God;[63] and in very many other biblical types of this kind."

The bull recounts that the Fathers interpreted the angel's address to Mary, "highly favoured one" or "full of grace",[64] as indicating that "she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction"; they "frequently compare her to Eve while yet a virgin, while yet innocence, while yet incorrupt, while not yet deceived by the deadly snares of the most treacherous serpent".

Patronages

A number of countries are considered to be under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception by pontifical decree.

The report "Mary: Faith and Hope in Christ", by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, concluded that the teaching about Mary in the two definitions of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception can be said to be consonant with the teaching of the Scriptures and the ancient common traditions.[67] But the report expressed concerns that the Roman Catholic dogmatic definitions of these concepts implies them to be "revealed by God", stating: "The question arises for Anglicans, however, as to whether these doctrines concerning Mary are revealed by God in a way which must be held by believers as a matter of faith."[68]

Some Anglicans reject the doctrine that Mary was sinless and conceived without original sin, often citing that it is not within the Holy Scripture and is against the Redemptive role and purpose of Jesus Christ merited for all human beings.

Eastern and Oriental Orthodox

Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Christians often object to the dogmatic declaration of her immaculate conception as an "over-elaboration" of the faith and because they see it as too closely connected with a particular interpretation of the doctrine of ancestral sin.[69] All the same, the historical and authentic tradition of Mariology in Byzantium took its historical point of departure from Sophronios, Damascene, and their imitators. The most famous Eastern Orthodox theologian to imply Mary's Immaculate Conception was St. Gregory Palamas. Though many passages from his works were long known to extol and attribute to Mary a Christlike holiness in her human nature, traditional objections to Palamas' disposition toward the Immaculate Conception typically rely on a poor understanding of his doctrine of "the purification of Mary" at the Annunciation.[70] Not only did he explicitly cite St. Gregory Nazianzen for his understanding of Jesus' purification at His baptism and Mary's at the Annunciation, but Theophanes of Nicaea, Joseph Bryennius, and Gennadios Scholarios all explicitly placed Mary's Conception as the first moment of her all-immaculate participation in the divine energies to such a degree that she was always completely without spot and graced.[71] In addition to Emperor Manuel II and Gennadius Scholarius, St. Mark of Ephesus also fervently defended Mary's title as "prepurified" against the Dominican, Manuel Calecas, who was perhaps promoting thomistic Mariology that denied Mary's all-holiness from the first moment of her existence.[72]

He cleansed eve's body and sanctified it and made for it a dwelling in her for adam's salvation. She [i.e., mary] was born without blemish, for He made her pure, without pollution, and she redeemed his debt without carnal union and embrace...Through the transgression of eve we died and were buried, and by the purity of mary we receive honour, and are exalted to the heights (emphasis added).[73]

Old Catholic

While Old Catholics do not reject the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and some of their parishes venerate Mary as immaculately conceived and celebrate the feast of her Immaculate Conception, they do not accept its definition as a dogma, since they reject papal infallibility and with it the Pope's authority to define dogma.[74]

Protestantism

Martin Luther, who initiated the Protestant Reformation, said: "Mary is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin. God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil."[75] But in 1532 he denied Mary's immaculate conception, declaring: "Mary is conceived in sin just like us."[76] However, some Lutherans, such as the members of the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church, support the doctrine.

Most Protestants reject the doctrine because they do not consider the development of dogmatictheology to be authoritative apart from biblicalexegesis, and because the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not taught in the Bible.[77] The formal pronouncement of Mary's Immaculate Conception by the Catholic Church in 1854 alienated some Protestant churches partly due to its implication that not all have sinned.[78]

Islam

Official Islamic teachings highly regard the Virgin Mary as both a sublime model of purity and piety. An entire Sura chapter of the Qur'an is dedicated to her nobility, holiness, and fiat obedience to God. Among Islamic circles and discussions, she is often given a prominent status being the supreme feminine model of sanctity and maternal virtue.

Some Western writers claim that the immaculate conception of Mary is a teaching of Islam. Thus, commenting in 1734 on the passage in the [79]

In addition, further claims were made that the Roman Catholic Church derives its doctrine from the Islamic teaching. In volume 5 of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1788, Edward Gibbon wrote: "The Latin Church has not disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception of his virgin mother." That he was speaking of her immaculate conception by her mother, not of her own virginal conception of Jesus, is shown by his footnote: "In the xiith century the immaculate conception was condemned by St. Bernard as a presumptuous novelty."[80] In the aftermath of the definition of the dogma in 1854, this charge was repeated: "Strange as it may appear, that the doctrine which the church of Rome has promulgated, with so much pomp and ceremony, 'for the destruction of all heresies, and the confirmation of the faith of her adherents', should have its origin in the Mohametan Bible; yet the testimony of such authorities as Gibbon, and Sale, and Forster, and Gagnier, and Maracci, leave no doubt as to the marvellous fact."[81]

Without making Islamic belief the origin of the doctrine defined in 1854, a similarity between the two has been noted also by Roman Catholic writers such as Thomas Patrick Hughes,[82]William Bernard Ullathorne,[83] Giancarlo Finazzo.[84]

Certain books that speak of the "immaculate conception" in relation to Islam confuse this term with the virgin birth of Jesus, his conception by Mary, not Mary's own conception by her mother.[85][86][87] Among writers who do not mistake Mary's "immaculate conception" as her virginal conception of Jesus, some say that Mary "is credited in Islam with extraordinary holiness, herself immaculately conceived",[88] while others say that, "with regard to Mary's putative immaculate conception, while classical Islam holds the Qur'an to affirm Mary virginity and virtue, it repudiates the doctrine as it is known in Christianity. There is no inherited fault in the genesis of humans that requires any further form of salvation than moral repentance and an interior act of commitment and surrender."[89]

Other prayers honouring Mary's immaculate conception are in use outside the formal liturgy. The hymn Immaculate Mary, addressed to Mary as the Immaculately Conceived One, is closely associated with Lourdes.[98] The Immaculata prayer, composed by Saint Maximillian Kolbe, is a prayer of entrustment to Mary as the Immaculata.[99] A novena of prayers, with a specific prayer for each of the nine days has been composed under the title of the Immaculate Conception Novena.[100]

Artistic representations

Swiss emblem 16th century

The 1476 extension of the feast of the Immaculate Conception to the entire Latin Church reduced the likelihood of controversy for the artist or patron in depicting an image, so that emblems depicting The Immaculate Conception began to appear.[101]

Many artists in the 15th century faced the problem of how to depict an abstract idea such as the Immaculate Conception, and the problem was not fully solved for 150 years. The Italian Renaissance artist Piero di Cosimo was among those artists who tried new solutions, but none of these became generally adopted so that the subject matter would be immediately recognisable to the faithful.

The popularity of this particular representation of The Immaculate Conception spread across the rest of Europe, and has since remained the best known artistic depiction of the concept: in a heavenly realm, moments after her creation, the spirit of Mary (in the form of a young woman) looks up in awe at (or bows her head to) God. The moon is under her feet and a halo of twelve stars surround her head, possibly a reference to "a woman clothed with the sun" from Revelation 12:1-2. Additional imagery may include clouds, a golden light, and cherubs. In some paintings the cherubim are holding lilies and roses, flowers often associated with Mary.[104]

References

^Catechism of the Catholic Church, 490-493

^"Christianity: Immaculate Conception". BBC. Retrieved 25 May 2014.

^ ab"the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin" ( of Pope Pius IXIneffabilis DeusEncyclical )

^ abcdefEncyclopaedia Britannica 1911, "The Immaculate Conception"

^, 110Mystici CorporisEncyclical

^Denzinger 833, old numbering.

^As the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) somewhat coyly puts it, "Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents.", "Immaculate Conception", Catholic Encyclopedia

^Council of Orange II, Canon 19 "That no one is saved except by God's mercy. Even if human nature remained in that integrity in which it was formed, it would in no way save itself without the help of its Creator; therefore, since without the grace of God it cannot guard the health which it received, how without the grace of God will it be able to recover what it has lost?"

^"The celebration of the Mother of God as immaculate (achrantos), is a clear and universal recognition of her exceptional and iconic sanctity. Orthodoxy did not follow the path of Roman Catholicism in moving towards a recognition of her Immaculate Conception" ( The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual Culture (Blackwell 2011 ISBN 978-1-4443-3731-0), p. 218.)John Anthony McGuckin,

^Brian Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (The Early Christian Church Fathers), New York 2006, 115-118.

^Nicolas Cabasilas (†1371?). Homélies sur la Nativité, L’Annonciation et la Dormition de la Sainte Vierge, ed. M. Jugie (Patrologia Orientalis 19), Turnhout 1990, pp. 456-512 (ch. 10, lines 1-8): "If there are some of the holy doctors who say that the Virgin is ‘prepurified (προκεκαθάρθαι)’ by the Spirit, then it is yet necessary to think that ‘purification (κάθαρσιν)’ (i.e. an addition of graces) is intended by these authors, and these [doctors] say that this is the way the angels are ‘purified,’ with respect to whom there is nothing knavish."

^Joseph Bryennius, Ιὠσῆφ Μαναχοῦ τοῦ Βρυεννίου τὰ εὐρεθέντα, vol. 3, ed. E. Bulgaris (Thessaloniki: 1990), 31: "He says: ‘Yet, on one hand, how did another Mother of God not come about?’ But, on the other hand: ‘Had she some sort of virtue/excellence, because of which she was honored above all women?’ First, another woman was not chosen over her, because while God foreknew all women, he sanctified (ἡγίασεν) the future woman from her mother’s womb, purer (καθαρωτέραν) than other women, who were going to come to exist; but he eschewed all unworthy persons with respect to her, as is reasonable. But she procured for herself the excellence superior to all men and [procured for her] to be prepared as a containing receptacle of the divinity, which [same receptacle] was prepurified (τὸ προκαθαρθῆναι) by the Holy Spirit; O what a marvel, indeed!"

^“The air, the fiery ether, the sky would have been made holy by the ascent of her spirit, as earth was sanctified by the deposition of her body. Even water had its share in the blessing: for she was washed in pure water, which did not so much cleanse her as it was itself consecrated.” See John Damascene, On the Holy and Glorious Dormition and Transformation of Our Lady Mary, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin by Our Holy Father John, Monk of Damascus and Son of Mansour. Homily 2, in On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies, tr. B. Daley (Crestwood, NY :1998), 215.

^Mark of Ephesus, On the Distinction between Essence and Energy: First Antirrhetic against Manuel Kalekas. Editio princeps, ed. M. Pilavakis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), London 1987: "But He did so with her, after he prepurified (προκαθαρθείσῃ) her through a most profuse grace by means of the protecting Holy Spirit and divine power […]"

^christKebra Nagast, Chapter 96:Concerning the Prophecy about

^"Old Roman Catholic Church of North America - What IS Catholic?". Orccna.org. Retrieved 2009-05-05.

^William Bernard Ullathorne. The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God: An Exposition. First published 1855; ISBN 111089977. Chapter XIV, "Mahomet and Martin Luther". (Google Books)

^Giancarlo Finazzo. "The Virgin Mary in the Koran". L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English, 13 April 1978, page 4. Quote: "The dogma of the Immaculate Conception ... is univocally recognized by the Islamic religion."

"St. Augustine and Original Sin" — a short article on the different understandings of Original Sin in Eastern and Western Christianity, without distinguishing Protestant theology from Roman Catholic. The latter holds that "original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405).

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